You have Chef James Hemings, who cooked for Thomas Jefferson, to thank for the macaroni and cheese on your plate this Thanksgiving. Setting the Table's Deb Freeman tells us how the French dish became so baked into American cuisine. And: Across troubled waters, enslaved people carried benne seeds and grew them in a new land. Chef Amethyst Ganaway is snacking on benne wafers while thickening the Thanksgiving stew.

Later in the show: The Lowcountry is always cooking. Chef BJ Dennis says the vast rice plantations of the Lowcountry are visible from outer space. The famed Gullah Geechee chef honors the grain with his smoky tomato purloo.